The state anticipates receiving a work plan this year for how the Army will measure and judge the risks from contamination remaining at the site of the former military fuel tank depot near Tanani Point on Lutak Road.
“A risk assessment is a series of calculations,” said Anne Marie Palmieri, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation project manager. For example, it factors in the amount of contamination, determines how much of it could make it into the food chain, how much animals and people might consume — such as pounds of seafood per year — and then compares the results to safe standards.
The risk assessment “will evaluate exposure pathways” for the contamination, Palmieri explained.
After the state has a chance to comment on the work plan and its proposed math for calculating the health risks — the state will look it over for any data gaps — the Army Corps of Engineer’s contractor will work this winter to run the risk calculations, Palmieri said June 29.
The risk assessment was delayed when additional underground contamination was discovered last year at Tanani Point beach. A contractor testing soil and groundwater for pollutants found contaminated soil on the beach at levels in excess of state standards.
The pollutants found in the groundwater were below the state’s safety limits, and do not pose much of a hazard to human health, Palmieri said last spring.
The military’s contractor conducted more soil and water testing last summer, and those results will be included in the work plan expected this year, said Palmieri, who has been working on the clean-up project since 1997. The site is about 2.5 miles north of downtown Haines.
The risk assessment will be expanded to include the beach contamination, adding marine life to the work. “They need to expand the risk assessment to include all these additional source areas,” Palmieri said.
An Army-sponsored public meeting that had been planned for the spring now is on hold.
The 626-mile, eight-inch-diameter pipeline carried jet fuel and other petroleum products from Haines to Eielson Air Force Base and other military installations in Fairbanks from 1955 to 1971, when the Haines end of the line closed down. Until the tank farm shut down in 1988, it was used for storage of refined product hauled by truck to Fairbanks.
The federal government has been investigating and cleaning up the site since operations ended. Buildings and storage tanks were removed first, then soil was excavated to stop further contamination from flowing downhill.